Talking on the phone yesterday with my daughter, called to wish her a happy birthday. We caught up with our chatting and family gossip. She got around to telling me while laughing, "I was so mad at Chris, (her husband), the other day! I came close to hitting him!" Now her husband is one of the calmest guys I know, what could he have done?

Well they are the supreme living on a budget couple, they live on an envelope system and it works for them. They can afford for her to be a stay-at-home and still have Ali in a Montessori preschool. They take a planned vacation every 3 years and get by with one car. Their house is a modest ranch, not the mini-mansion of the older son or the cool neighborhood in Chicago condo of the other.

So what happened? The darling daughter answered the phone and it was AmEx calling to ask about a 'suspicious charge' for $1500. She didn't recognize the name of the company, but Chris was working at home, downstairs. She called down, "It's AmEx on the phone, there's a $1500 charge and there's no way you'd buy something like that without talking, right?" "Um, tell them it's OK, I'll be up in a minute," he was on a video conference. LOL! Now my daughter is the opposite of a calm person and the kind of budgeting they've been on really has been difficult for her. She enjoys the freedom of not worrying, but has had a difficult time not comparing to her sibs, cousins, friends, all of whom have two incomes and plenty of toys and travel.

He came upstairs fairly quickly, (I hope without too much work problems!), and she was spitting nails. She lit into him, "How could you spend that much without discussing it first? What in the world did you buy? Another camera lens? What???!!!??? I have to worry about buying staples sometimes, and you spend $1500?"

She was laughing now on the phone, "I was so mad I could barely hear him when he said, "Remember how sick you and Ali were all winter? I never got any of it, but you were so wiped out. I said to you one day, 'When are you going to feel better?' 'You said, probably not until summer.' Well that is how it worked out. I wanted to give you something special for your birthday, so I called your friend in New Zealand and got you a ticket to go for a week in November. I'd love to go, but the cost was too high for all of us. You'll be staying with your friend and she'll take you to all the cool spots you want to see. It's the beginning of their summer, that's what made me think of it. Happy Birthday, without the surprise." Needless to say, she was surprised and crying.